Greenidge alludes to these multiple contexts in subtle ways. As Libertie’s mother’s assistant Lenore states in explanation of a Black relative’s death in infancy, “Back then, there was no colored doctor, man or woman, in the county. If you wanted to go to see a doctor, you had to find a white person willing to accompany you—white doctors did not treat colored people if we came alone.” In her silent musings, Libertie finds it ironic that her mother’s light skin allows her to gain entry to medical school and, once trained, to also eventually serve white patients in what was once her Colored Women’s Hospital: “The white women came because Mama was colored but not too colored.”
Despite creating in Libertie a young woman who has the charmed childhood of apprenticing to a practicing Black doctor in her youth, Greenidge does not allow her to blindly accept her mother’s dream for her destiny. Libertie longs to feel impassioned about her own dreams and is only able to do so as readers watch her mature through a unique set of life experiences. These experiences include watching other women enjoy love and cultivating a healthy desire to find a love of her own.
Greenidge’s focus on Black middle-class women during the mid-nineteenth century is an unexpected treat. The author touches on the Black women’s club movement, a phenomenon that saw the creation of clubs established by Black women to cultivate their love of literature, the arts, and civic duty. These organizations were multi-generational and served as a support network for African-American women to exercise their power of intellectual and political influence and growth. In a novel that handles slavery and the Underground Railroad, Greenidge also reveals that it was education and community development which propelled the growth of the Black middle class both pre and post- emancipation. Significantly, she places women at the center of this history by creating intimate narrative spaces where women encourage, support, and work to educate each other despite the attendant perils and traditions of living in a racially polarized and patriarchal world.